5. Special K Figures Out Connections

Chapter five

Special K Figures Out Connections

T here was more to this case than what we could see on the surface, and I was damned determined to prove it. But it took more than wishful thinking, although I had that too. I put together an algorithm to analyze the data. I entered each case and the parameters as well as a map of the Southeast United States. And…

Waited.

I played on my phone, attempting to distract myself. But it did not help. At. All. My eyes lingered on the folders stuck on my desk, so I poured through them. One after the other. It was sad. So many young adults had gone missing, and no one had connected them. They were all so similar. Young men and women in their late teens to early twenties. All slim. Attractive. The majority of them attended college at one of the schools in targeted areas. I jotted down a note about that to follow up later. It seemed like the locations were all from Atlanta to Miami. Most along the I-75 corridor. But there were a few outliers.

The computer dinged with a notification. My algorithm had finished. I hesitated.

This could be something big. Or nothing at all. And I didn't know which one I wanted more.

If it was nothing, could I walk away from these cases? And if it was something, was I prepared to move forward? Well, I had Doolittle to consider in this. He was the agent, and I'd have to convince him first.

He seemed reasonable, mostly. But there was something else there beneath that. I could see he was putting on an agent persona, a game face, but underneath, he doubted himself and his abilities or something like that. He was vulnerable. Pulling him out of that spot and into the best version he could be, well…that was my job. I could do it.

First, this case.

I opened the results and watched as the points along the map lit up. They weren't one by one like I expected. They were here and there across geography and time. It meant more than one person was abducting these people. That could have been why no one put this together, but I was convinced it was all connected. And the proof came when the points stopped flashing, culminating in Tampa. It painted a picture of a team of people starting in multiple places, including Atlanta, Jacksonville, and Miami. Collecting more and more people along the way until they reached Tampa. There were no abductions from the Tampa area but everywhere around it. And a few as close as Orlando and Lakeland. It was as if the lights were pointing at Tampa, though. I needed to get Doolittle in on this.

I shot him another text.

Get. Over here. NOW! You have to see this.

Cursing under my breath, I made a few more notes and waited. I huffed and ran the algorithm again to double-check my work. Oh, Gawd. Where the fuck was Doolittle?

By the time he showed up, the second run had finished with the same results.

"What's so urgent?" Doolittle dropped into the chair beside me. He smelled like alcohol, making me wrinkle my nose. "Stop doing that." He touched the tip of my nose with his cold finger.

"You stink."

"You're rude. And annoying." He spun his hand in the air. "Want to get on with it?"

Rolling my eyes when he was around was quickly becoming a habit. "Look." I ran the output again.

"So? What am I looking at?"

I explained what the program was showing. "Basically, this means that a group of assholes, acting together, abducted all these young people and took them to Tampa."

"Huh. I see why you think that, but you're making a lot of assumptions."

"It is the perfect place. This is human trafficking. They're getting the product out of the country via the Tampa port."

Doolittle mumbled something under his breath.

"What? Say it. What are you thinking?"

He crossed his arms over his chest and pursed his lips hard, making them a white gash across his face. His eyes roamed over me, almost like a physical touch. I wasn't one to be so quickly attracted to anyone. I considered myself more demi sexual, needing to get to know a person well before I started feeling the little tell-tale signs of enticement. Not this time, though. The way Doolittle looked at me had me stirred up quickly. There was so much about him that I liked. Oh, Gawd. That included his brusque fa?ade. His eyebrow quirked up. "You're reaching. Your logic makes sense, but there are a lot of holes and no proof." He held his hands out to his sides and shrugged. "Of anything."

"We need to get proof. You're an agent, for fuck's sake. Let's go get proof."

"Yeah. I'm an agent. You are not. We are not going anywhere. I'm not putting my analyst in any kind of danger. And for that matter. There's nothing here to go get ." He fucking air quoted the go get . He was mocking me, and I would not take this treatment.

I stood and pointed at him. "I'm more than an analyst. And I've been through the same basic field training as you. And there is plenty here to go get . Stop being an asshole."

Doolittle stood, his chair sliding away behind him. I thought he would fall for a second, but then he caught his balance. "You're out of line." He stepped forward and tripped, which landed him in my chair, but that rolled—into me. I fell into his lap.

He was warm and comfortable with his arms around me. Oh, Gawd—it felt like home. "I can do this," I whispered. "I need to do this. We have to help these people." What I didn't say was I was too involved in the case after reading the files. I'd already gone in too deep. It felt like there was suddenly an awful lot of falling going on in this basement office.

Doolittle squeezed me. "Up." When I stood, he turned the chair to look at the screen. "How do we zoom this map in?"

"In to where?"

"Tampa. The docks."

I leaned over his shoulder and clicked around, bringing up a new map of only Tampa. He stared for what seemed like forever. "Neither of us have been in the field yet. We're both new. That means if, and that's a big if. But if we go down there, it's only to nose around and see what's what. We are definitely not going onto private property or anything else that will get us in trouble. Got that?"

"Got it."

"Fine."

"Does that mean we're going to the docks?"

He nodded and sighed.

"What changed your mind?" I needed to know how his brain worked. What was his thought process here? And more importantly, how could I use that to my advantage in the future.

"No one takes me seriously. This job, for me, is pretty much just something to do to keep me out of trouble and everyone knows it. But I'm curious. And though that's gotten me in trouble in the past, it's probably what an agent needs most. And…" His face scrunched up into some kind of painful scowl.

"And?"

"If we can make a difference, this whole bullshit job might be worth it."

I had heard through the gossip mill that Doolittle was standoffish. A few said dickhead or jerk. Our bosses told me he didn't seem to care about anything and had no initiative, which is one of the reasons they had proposed assigning me to him. They hoped I could get him going. Finding a case was my number one job, and I had already succeeded there. Maybe I could do more. "It will be worth it." I put my hand on his shoulder.

"Whatever. I have to fill out the paperwork on this first." Before he'd finished saying the word paperwork , a stack appeared on the desk beside his hand. Gotta love SPAM efficiency. "So, we'll go tomorrow."